A Well Made Tripel

While MoreBeer had me on hold for the my equipment I got impatient. I went on the internet and found the Brooklyn Brew Shop. They offered kits in 1 gallon quantities. This was intriguing to me for two reasons. First, I wasn't sure I could drink 5 gallons of beer at a time. Second, I wanted to experiment as much as possible and this would allow me to make many more batches of beer. The kit contained a 1 gallon glass fermenter, a thermometer, tubing, air lock, etc. Very simple. They included a kit of grain and I chose "A Well Made Tripel." Their website can be found at http://brooklynbrewshop.com.

I took almost two weeks for it to get to me. By that time MoreBeer came through. Well, it's here, so let's do this. I invited dad over for brewing. I thought he would like to come over and see the process. We started around 12pm.

So, first thing I'd like to note is that this is an all-grain brew. These guys don't tell me anything useful about the kit either. I don't know exactly what grains I'm using or the really cool numbers on the hops. Couple that with the fact that the whole process took 6 hours and I got 1 gallon of beer and I think I can safely say this is the last go with Brooklyn Brew Shop. I mean it's the same amount of work for 5 gallons or 1 gallon. Also, two weeks went by before it got here and I think the grain may have been affected by that (it was already crushed).

Ingredients:
1. Grain. Type, Weight, unknown.
2. Hops - East Kent Golding and Saaz Hops.
3. Belgian Candi.
4. Safbrew S-33 Lot = 231605

According to Brookly Brew Shop we expect
1. ABV = 9.9%

Results (thus far):
Gallons brewed = 1
OG = 1.058
Temp of wort at pitching yeast = 70F

The brew date was 3-4-2011 and brewers were myself and dad.

When dad arrived I was already cleaning the equipment. He asked a little about the water used for beer. I mentioned that we want spring water and he looked at what I had an asked why I had purified water. Crap!! So I sent him out to buy me some more. By the time he got back I was done cleaning. We measured out our starsan and put it in the pitcher I use to water the dogs.

I was using Ellie's new pots. They are telfon coated and she yelled at me for using a metal spoon. Rightly so. Dad and I measured out 3 quarts of water and warmed it up to 160F. Then we put in the grains and began mashing it. I did my best to keep the temp between 155F - 145F. With about 10 mins to go in the mash I began to heat our sparge water. 4 quarts. I got it up to 170F. After an 1 hour total I mashed out the wort. This meant I warmed up the mash to 170F while stirring.

Dad and I got our brew pot and pour the wort over a fine mesh strainer into the pot. We got about half of the grains in there. So we sparged half of our water over it. Then we put those grains in a big ass bowl and got the rest of or grains from the mash pot into the strainer and poured the rest of the sparge over it. Real scientific like. We made a mess. It was fun and awesome. The wort did have a slightly sweet taste to it (I tried it). But the grains themselves appeared to me to taste sweeter. We should have run the wort over those grains twice. I'll remember to do that in the future. Dad and I both ate some of the grains. They taste great.

Now we get our brew pot on the stove and start boiling. The electric stove seems to take forever to get it to temp. Once the hot break came and went we added our first hops (East Kent Golding). I used a bag to put the hops in. I broke of part of a pellet and gave it to dad to try. That was fun. You could tell the taste just exploded intensely in his mouth. Haha. It did have an intense taste. Similar to Cascade but a little less citrusy. Then we watched "How It's Made" on TV. I learned how to shod a horse. Cool.

With 5 minutes left we added our flavoring hops (Saaz). I smelled this and noted that it had a little more of a woody smell to it. I added it to the same bag as the other hops. Dad noted how well the hops break from that pellet form to the sludgy form we say in the bag. When the sixty minutes were up we added the Candi. Dad stirred it up until the candi was dissolved and then we put it in the freezer. After that we focused on re-hydrating the yeast.

I put in 1 cup of water into the glass measuring cup and put it in the microwave until boiling. Then I put it in the freezer to cool. When it had cooled to 90F I added the yeast. After 20 mins we smelled it and noted a bready smell. Not bad. Not offense.

By now I was concerned as the brew hadn't cooled very well in the freezer. I decided to switch tactics and we made an ice bath. That worked real well. Especially since dad stirred it constantly. After that the brew cooled quickly. When it got to 72F I took a sample and check with the hydrometer. I was sad to see a OG of 1.058. This beer will never reach 9.9% ABV. The OG was just way too low. We should have sparged more. Oh well. Live and learn.

We poured the wort through the strainer again into a funnel that emptied into the fermenter. I then shook it up and we pitched the yeast. I shook it up some more. Then we installed the blow off tube and put in the bath tube with the other fermenter.

All in all I would say that things went well. Things I learned:
1. Run the wort through the strainer multiple times.
2. The freezer don't work well for cooling wort in a big pot.
3. 1 gallon of beer will take the same amount of time as a 5 gallon brew.

After we finished our beer we got to work on a starter for tomorrows beer. Dad will help with that too. I'll say that yeast smelled a little more sour but not as bad as the White Labs English Ale. I used a DME for the starter.

We finished around 5:30pm. I sent dad home at that point. Mom was getting worried. I then cleaned up. Then I went to the movies with Gma and E. We saw "The Adjustment Bureau." It was ok. They're angels. They are making sure we stick to the plan.